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Fishbowl D.C's weekly roundup of White House media pool reports includes this gem about events last weekend:

"On a cloudless beautiful Sunday, 10 motorcyles rumbled up the South Lawn drive at the White House at about 12:35 p.m. Most of the bikes were Harley-Davidsons; at least two were Hondas. ... Four Bush administration officials were among the group, including well-known Harley fan and White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, wearing a black collared shirt and jeans; Transportation Secretary Mary Peters (simple white shirt); and Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer (blue casual oxford). But the award for best stepping into character goes to Edward P. 'Eddie' Lazear, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, who sported a leather Harley vest and a black bandana wrapped around his head. All of the Bushies appeared to be riding Harleys and everyone wore helmets. Lazear told the pool he borrowed his bike from a Virginia dealer." -- Dan Eggen, The Washington Post.

Judy Park joined the staff of an organization known as the National Association of Retired Civil Employees in 1968 as assistant to its president. In short order, NARCE became the National Association of Retired Federal Employees (and, later, the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association), and Park became its legislative director. And there she has remained, fighting to promote legislation on behalf of federal retirees. Until tomorrow, that is, when she retires.

“There are some people who think Judy has been here since NARFE began,” said the organization's president, Margaret L. Baptiste. “But, actually, she’s been here for slightly less than half our 87-year history. She’s done a magnificent job and she will be missed by all of us in NARFE.”

The Drug Enforcement Administration has its hands full dealing with narcotraffickers in other countries and drug dealers at home. So it's really unfortunate when the agency also has to apprehend people who should be its allies -- agents in other federal agencies. DEA reported Wednesday that it had arrested Customs and Border Protection officers Walter Golembiowski and John Ajello on charges related to narcotics importation and bribery conspiracy.

The CBP officers are alleged to have assisted in clearing shipments of hashish, other controlled substances, and counterfeit goods through Customs operations at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

“Smuggling any kind of illegal commodity raises troubling issues at a time of deep concern over national security," said Michael J. Garcia, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. "The threat is heightened when a government official accepts bribes to help smugglers breach our borders. Thanks to the tireless work of our law enforcement partners, including internal investigators from DHS and ICE, these defendants will no longer be able to profit from their corruption of the public trust.”

So reports the Washington Post today, noting that almost half of the top politically appointed positions in government are vacant or being filled on a temporary basis. And it's unlikely that Congress will move very swiftly on pending nominations this late in the administration.

It's not exactly an unprecedented scenario, considering how late it is in the president's term, but, the Post's story notes, we're in kind of a dicey situation to be lacking high-level leadership, what with the deteriorating economic situation at home and a whole lot of military activity overseas.

In an e-mail message sent today, backers of the proposed U.S. Public Service Academy are careful to point out that they do not "support or endorse any particular candidate running for any political or elected office." But they clearly would like to win the front-runners in the presidential race over to their side.

The message, in fact, is an effort to launch a grassroots campaign to encourage Barack Obama to back legislation to create the academy. So far, Obama has offered "rhetorical support" for the idea, the e-mail notes, but hasn't signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill. On the other hand, his rival for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, was one of the earliest proponents of the measure.

Clinton hasn't backed out of the race with Obama yet, but the academy's e-mail seems to treat her defeat -- and, indeed, Obama's eventual election to the presidency -- as something of a foregone conclusion. Exhorting supporters to call Obama's office, the message says they should "explain that the Public Service Academy will embody the spirit of service and the culture of compassion that Sen. Obama stands for. What the Peace Corps was for JFK, the Public Service Academy can be for Sen. Obama -- a national initiative that institutionalizes the idealism of his incoming administration."

Of course, the e-mail also notes that academy backers "are working to win Sen. McCain's support as well" for their proposal.

Americans love their food. That seems to be the logical conclusion of new research published by the Agriculture Department's Economic Research Service. Americans spend, on average, more than two hours a day eating and drinking as either a primary or secondary activity.

Here are the specifics:

On an average day in 2006, Americans age 15 and older spent 67 minutes eating and drinking as a “primary,” or main, activity, and 16 minutes eating and 42 minutes drinking (except plain water) as a secondary activity—that is, eating while engaged in another activity considered primary by the individual. Eight percent of the population spent 4.5 hours or more a day on eating/drinking as either a primary or secondary activity. About 9 percent of Americans’ secondary eating and drinking occurred while driving a vehicle, walking, or biking. Secondary eating or drinking was most frequently accompanied by socializing, relaxing, and leisure, which includes watching television.

Also, researchers found that "individuals who are overweight or obese spent more time watching television and less time participating in sports and exercise than did those of normal weight." Shocking!

Now excuse me while I go get a snack.

(Hat tip: Docuticker)

I was surprised to learn last week Stephen Barr will be taking a buyout and leaving his post as "Federal Diary" columnist for the Washington Post. This is a big loss for the people who cover the federal government -- and those who work for it.

The news business is highly competitive, and Steve always has been a tough competitor, routinely uncovering nuggets of news before the rest of us. But he's also always been a gracious colleague, more than willing to share his expertise with others on the federal beat. And he's always treated other reporters, no matter how young or inexperienced, as equals.

I fondly recall many hours spent with Steve covering hearings, meetings and events related to Al Gore's reinventing government effort, he as a seasoned journalist who knew all the right questions to ask, and me as a green reporter just trying to keep my eyes and ears open.

Sorry if this sounds like a euology, because it's not. I have no doubt that Steve will go on to do other great things in the new phase of his career that will start after he moves on in mid-June. But we'll miss him.

Uh-oh: MSNBC reports that the toilet on the space station is broken.

NASA has paid $19 million for a new Russian-built toilet for the station, and apparently it can't arrive a moment too soon.

It's not just about kicking back at the beach or firing up the barbecue grill: More than 100,000 people are expected to attend Memorial Day ceremonies at national cemeteries run by the Veterans Affairs Department, the VA reports. Under the Veterans Pride Initiative, the department is asking veterans to display their military medals on their civilian clothes on Monday. That'll be one way to focus some of the attention back on the approximately 1 million Americans who have died in military service during wartime.

From the Washington Post: "Bush Tours Once-Squalid Latrine"

Soldiers and civilians working for the military in Afghanistan are no longer prohibited from having sex -- technically, at least. But it's not like military commanders are encouraging the practice.

Stars and Stripes reports that Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, commander of Combined Joint Task Force-101, lifted a ban on "intimate behavior" between men and women not married to each other. But such behavior is still "highly discouraged," and even the new rules render it pretty difficult to find opportunities for intimacy. Single men and women can visit each other’s living quarters, but can't go "behind closed doors, partitions or other isolated or segregated areas."

The Census Bureau is apparently looking into whether it would make sense to offer prizes to people who fill out census forms in 2010. And it's not the first time officials have considered such a move. Former census director Martha Farnsworth Riche tells Federal news Radio that the bureau looked at the idea "pretty thoroughly" before the 2000 count. "We consulted with people in the sweepstakes industry to find out exactly what would be involved, and after doing that, we decided not to pursue it. It just had more costs than it looked like having benefits."

In the end, officials figured the people who are unlikely to fill out the census form are the same ones who don't participate in sweepstakes.

Should federal employees in Hawaii be shifted from a system in which they get annual cost of living allowances to account for the expense of working in the state to the locality pay system under which other feds toil? That's the subject of a series of meetings being held this week and next in Hawaii by a Senate subcommittee. Staff from the subcommittee, the Office of Personnel Management, the Defense Department and the Postal Service will be on hand to answer employees' questions about options under consideration.

Think you can balance the federal budget? American Public Media is giving you the chance, with a new online game, Budget Hero. It's a fun, breezy presentation, but the data behind the game is quite rigorous.

(Hat tip: BoingBoing)

What will be the most secretive part of the upcoming presidential transition? William M. Arkin describes it on his "Early Warning" blog at Washingtonpost.com: Giving the new president access to the "go codes" for launching a nuclear attack. Here, Arkin writes, is how it will work:

On inauguration day, a high-level Pentagon civilian, authorized to act on the president's and secretary of defense's behalf, will stay behind from the Bush administration for the hours until a new secretary is confirmed and given the twin briefing and authorities held by the president. Raven Rock Mountain in northern Maryland will be activated just in case. Strategic Command in Omaha, Neb., working closely with the intelligence community, will stay on the highest level of alert.

Where does John McCain stand on veterans benefits? Here's an exhaustive report.

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Members of Congress love their earmarks -- to the tune of $20 billion this year, for 11,000 pet projects. Not surprisingly, they want to make sure than the dollars go to the intended recipients of their largesse, and not into agencies' coffers.

The New York Times reports today on how Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., ordered up a Congressional Budget Office study of what he calls "earmark skimming": the practice by some agencies of taking a cut off the top of some earmarks to pay for the cost of administering the funds. He says the government needs a standard for how much of a cut is acceptable.

Right now, the amount agencies take varies widely -- from nothing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development to 25 percent at the Defense Department.

Allison Stanger, a professor of political science at Middlebury College, had an interesting piece in the Washington Post yesterday about the limitations of the much-vaunted USAspending.org site, the official federal Web portal for government spending data. Her beef is twofold: that the information it contains is a constantly moving target (it's impossible to tell when a year's data has been "closed out") and that the Office of Management and Budget says it is "cleansing" the data, but doesn't make clear exactly what that means.

There are other issues with the USAspending.gov. Here's one: it's hard to tell exactly how much money some companies get from Uncle Sam. Do a simple search for information on Boeing, for example, and you'll get 14 different results, because data on some of the company's subsidiaries and joint ventures is listed separately. You'd need to add all of those figures up to get a more accurate picture of Boeing's contract dollars.

These are among the reasons why we at Government Executive continue to work with our friends at Eagle Eye Publishers Inc. to refine the federal contracting data we publish each year in our annual Top 200 Federal Contractors issue. In fact, we're doing so right now, in preparation for publication of the special issue in August. Information about how we use the data is available here.

You can't say John MCain isn't willing to poke fun at himself. He appeared (again) on NBC's Saturday Night Live last weekend, with a very funny fake campaign commercial making the case for a president who's "very, very, very old," and extolling his crusade against pork-barrel spending:

Best quote: "My friends, I've fought waste in government my entire career, and during more than 20 years representing Arizona in both the House and Senate, I've not once sought to bring pork barrel spending back to my state. Not even highway funds! When I entered the Senate in 1987, Arizona had 47,000 miles of paved roadway. Today, it's less than 900.

(Hat tip: OhMyGov!)

Here's the "ouch" statistic of the day, courtesy of Lyndsey Layton in the Washington Post, about an agency that's responsible for managing literally millions of American cultural resources: "In 2004, the Forest Service turned away more than one-third of the people seeking to help agency archaeologists because it did not have the resources to organize them."

Part of the reason is that an increasing share of the agency's budget is going to firefighting. And as a result, many sites, from Civil War battlefields to cabins built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, are falling into ruins. But it's hard to tell exactly how many, because the Forest Service simply doesn't know how many sites of archaeological or historical importance are on the lands under its control. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is pushing Congress to double the agency's budget for managing culturally important resources.

Is the Army National Guard a dead end?

(Hat tip: BoingBoing)

That's what the Office of Personnel Management wants to know. The agency has sent a memo to agency chief human capital officers telling them to provide lists of of their politically appointed positions. The lists then will be passed on to the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees. The agency is required to collect and transmit the information under the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act.

Specifically, OPM wants agencies to list:

• All positions that are appointed by the president, including the title and description of the duties of each position.
• The names of the people holding these positions.
• Any vacancies in the positions, and how long they've been vacant.
• The date after the election on which an appointment to each position must be made to ensure effective operation of the government.

Erstwhile Government Executive columnist, professor and all-around gadfly Paul Light has a new book out on the state of the federal establishment. His take? Things are not going well. At all. In this regard, you can judge the book by its title: A Government Ill Executed.

Here's what Light wrote in a piece in The Politico this week:

The problem is that the federal government is perilously close to the breaking point. Unless the next president takes the lead in fixing government, he or she will preside over a string of meltdowns that will make the federal response to Hurricane Katrina look like a minor mistake.

Light's litany of problems the government faces includes:

• Agencies have missions that extend well beyond their resources.


• The federal establishment is "governed by a chain of command that defies logic."


• Political appointees are "selected through a process that guarantees delays, vacancies and embarrassment."


• Many federal employees are "motivated more by pay and compensation than the chance to make a difference."


• The growth in the government contractor establishment has diffused accountability for results.

If you haven't already seen it, I wanted to call your attention to our new guide to the ongoing drama surrounding Office of Special Counsel chief Scott Bloch and the various Bush administration officials he's investigated -- all while under investigation himself the whole time. If you're having as much trouble as I am keeping track of this web of still-developing controversies, it's a handy tool.

The Washington Nationals are saying thanks to the nation's civil servants -- in the form of discounted tickets. The team, in conjunction with the Partnership for Public Service, has designated Saturday, May 24 as Federal Employee Appreciation Night at Nationals Park.

The best part for those of us on the outside of government looking in is that you don't have to be a federal employee to get the discounts. You just have to use this link to order tickets.

The team also will be offering the discounts in recognition of federal employees at games on July 12 and Sept. 20.

The Wall Street Journal's "Middle Seat" columnist, Scott McCartney, reports today on the Transportation Security Administration's new "Black Diamond" program, under which the agency is testing the concept of using separate airport screening lanes for "expert" travelers, casual travelers and families. (The terminology comes from the phrase ski resorts use to designate expert trails.)

Agency officials were skeptical about the idea when fliers suggested it, but now they're high on the concept. The approach approach seems to ease both the flow at security checkpoints and travelers' anxiety. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to matter which lane travelers pick (TSA officers often route people to shorter lines); the mere process of sorting themselves makes things go more smoothly.

Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, says the non-profit has had an unprecedented response from federal agencies in response to training the organization is offering on how to improve the process of bringing new employees on board.

“We have been struck by the overwhelming response this report has generated in just a single day,” Stier said. “We are conducting a workshop tomorrow with a set of federal agencies that is so oversubscribed that we had to set a second date that is also oversubscribed.”

More than 60 people are signed up for tomorrow’s workshop, from every major federal agency, Stier said. They may be attracted by evidence that strong onboarding programs can increase retention rates by 25 percent, a key statistic as the retirement wave looms over the federal coastline. --Alyssa Rosenberg

Have no fear, race fans -- well, at least not an inordinate amount of fear. The Indianapolis 500 may present an attractive target to terrorists, but there's no specific, credible threat to this year's race, the FBI and the Homeland Security Department say. Nevertheless, law enforcement and DHS officials, at the behest of Congress, are studying up on how to deal with potential threats to mass gatherings.

I'm here at our Excellence in Government conference, where we're zeroing in on two topics: managing the workforce of tomorrow and preparing for the impending presidential transition. Not surprisingly, those two subjects are generating a lot of discussion.

This morning, I got a chance to hear Roxie Merritt, the Defense Department's director of new media, and Alex Casanova, a senior technologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, talk about what they're doing online. The Pentagon is experimenting with all kinds of Web 2.0 techniques, and is reaching out directly to bloggers to bypass the mainstream media. CDC is big into Second Life, and has recently built a new island in the alternate universe.

At lunch, Jennifer Deal, author of Retiring the Generation Gap, gave a fascinating presentation about her research, which shows that the differences between generations aren't nearly as profound as people tend to think they are. As regular readers will no doubt guess, that was music to my ears.